Naked or Dead

“Name?” He slides the pointed nail of his forefinger down his roster, stopping at the empty row at the bottom of the page.

“Lilith Deville,” I reply as I move to the only empty space in this dreary classroom.

My new classmates murmur around me, whispering questions of who I am, where I’m from, and why I’m here in their stupid preppy bullshit of a school.

“I wasn’t aware I’d be getting a new student today,” the teacher mutters, a frown marring his aged, yet handsome features. I wonder if he knows that his red tie clashes with his orange hair or if he simply doesn’t care. “Where have you transferred from, Miss Deville?”

“A place where teachers couldn’t wear ties,” I respond loudly. “Ties became nooses in my old school.”

“High rate of suicide?” he asks, sounding and looking concerned as his hand adjusts the clothing piece in question.

“Not suicide, no.”

My meaning isn’t lost on him, his polite smile falls. He clears his throat and those whispers around me become more desperate. Eyes level on me and glance away, others stick to me like glue, some don’t even venture near me at all.

“Well, as I’m your first teacher of the day, welcome to Lakeside Preparatory Academy. I’m Mr. Bromley.”

I nod and pull the shit I need from my bag.

“Do you have a buddy for your first day?”

“I’m good.”

“It’s a big school.” He looks at a girl over in the back corner, I clocked her as soon as I walked in. “Perhaps Blair would…”

“I said I’m good,” I repeat, clicking the end of my pen incessantly.

More whispering. Somebody calls me a bitch.

I don’t care.

“Well, alright then. Everybody, eyes back on the board.”

“Hey,” the guy beside me whispers, tapping me on my bare shoulder with the eraser on the end of his pencil.

I look at him, his dark hair and pale skin, his stubble that he’s likely super proud of despite the fact it’s patchy, the trail of acne scars visible along his neck. He’s cute, exactly the kind of guy my sister would have dated. I hate him already.

I catch my reflection in his glasses, a faceless outline with wild hair and a stiff posture, then take his pencil that is still suspended between us and snap it with both of my hands.

His lips part and his brows furrow.

“What the fuck?” he mouths, looking at the broken pencil that I just dropped to the floor. “You’re not going to make any friends with that attitude.”

“Good,” I reply, smiling a fake-ass smile that I’ve perfected over the past few months. “I don’t want friends.”

“Psycho,” a girl behind me whispers but she straightens nervously when I turn to look at her and the desk that separates us.

All I have to do is stare and her wide gray eyes almost pop out of her head as her body slowly slinks off her chair like a slug over an edge.

Satisfied, I turn back around and look at the board. Mr. Bromley’s eyes are on me, his lips are a thin white line. I hold his gaze letting him know what I’m about.

I’m not here to learn. I’m not here to make friends. I’m here because I must be and here is where I’ll stay until I’ve gotten what I need.

My dad always said you can say more with a single look at the right time than you can with a thousand words. Actions speak louder than words.

“Loki, right?” I ask the guy whose pencil I just snapped.

He keeps his gaze ahead as Bromley starts talking us through some local history but I know he heard me.

“Who is the most arrogant guy in school?”

He frowns and wets his lips. “Why should I tell you anything?”

“Because the longer it takes me to get answers, the longer I’m in this hell hole of a school.”

He rolls his eyes. “Why do I care?”

I look at the girl behind me. “Clay eyes,” I hiss, craning my neck and twisting my body in my seat.

“Me?” She points to herself, her eyes wide again.

“What’s the punishment for sexual assault and harassment here?”

Her lips part, her eyes swim with confusion. “Why?”

“Just answer the question.”

“Suspension pending investigation…”

Loki shifts in his seat, catching the gist of my threat. He’s really annoyed. “Nok.”

“Knock?”

“Yes,” he huffs. “Nok is the most arrogant guy here.”

“By far,” the girl behind me agrees.

I don’t remember seeing that name on the list of pupils here. I scour my brain but nothing comes to mind.

“Full name?” I ask abruptly and his hands squeeze into fists.

“Nokosi Locklear.”

I know that name. It’s exactly the person I was told about.

“He’s like the only Native American that attends here, he’s not hard to spot.”

I rotate to look at her again and raise a brow. “This school is meant to be progressive and you’re telling me there’s only one Native American?”

“You have to be rich to get in.”

“And white apparently,” I mutter and then snort, “Well… fuck.”

“What is it?” Loki asks cautiously.

I don’t reply, instead I burn the name to memory and mentally curse that my first target is the only minority in the school. That’s a racism charge if I ever saw one. Fuck.

Never mind. I have shit to do. I don’t care who I upset.

“Did they teach you respect in your last school, Miss Deville?” Bromley barks at me, annoyed at my ignorance and chatter. “Because in our school we wait until we’re on our own time to speak to our friends.”

Silence is my answer. I put pen to paper and scribble my name all over the lines in different types of handwriting. It at least looks like I’m doing something.

“Anybody else you can think of that stands out as an arrogant asshole?” I ask just before the bell rings but neither of them answers.

Never mind, I have my starting point.

Nokosi Locklear.

His reputation precedes him.

Now to find him.

A task easier than I anticipated I discover, after second period during first break, when a small riot breaks out in the halls, right where one hall joins another.

Students charge past me, eager to follow the crowd, teachers blow whistles and an alarm sounds overhead as security tries to get to whatever is happening just before the next bend.

“NOK! NOK! NOK!” they all chant and the sound of something or somebody slamming against a metal locker echoes over their heads.

I can’t be bothered to squeeze through so I toss a metal trash can upside down, letting the contents spill all over the floor and grab the shoulder of somebody nearby for leverage before standing on the flat bottom of the can.

I see a brown fist connect with a white cheek, and as though a filter of slow motion takes over my eyes, I watch a spray of blood fly through the air. White cheek guy hits the floor with a thud and does… not… move. Nobody steps forward, everybody freezes. But then he groans and tries to get up and the roar of the crowd is deafening.

The guy who I assume to be Nokosi grins at them all, making the cut on his lip bleed worse. He raises the fist he just KO’d the guy with and kisses his bulging bicep.

This guy is a piece of fucking work. He’s also extremely beautiful. He also knows it.

I’ve never seen such a sharp jaw, and longer hair on a guy never once appealed to me. It does now.

Long, black hair, tied back with a single hair tie.

He has a tribal-looking tattoo on the arm he just kissed and it is almost as stunning as he is. So intricate, patterned, perfect. I pull out my phone and try to get a picture of it but it’s grainy at best. There are too many bodies between us. Too much space.

As though sensing my eyes on him, or my camera, he looks up, his dark eyes narrow and land on mine, penetrating through my façade and startling me for just a second. His smile fades, his arm lowers. Nobody else seems to notice the exchange between us and that suits me just fine.

I almost shy away but I’m not that kind of person, not anymore. I hold his eyes, reading him, seeing into him. My dad was right, eyes do communicate more than a thousand words and there’s one word in particular that keeps repeating itself as our gazes remain locked.

Damaged.

Nokosi is damaged. Damaged people can always tell.

I need to make myself known to him, because if he’s as arrogant as I believe him to be, he’ll seek me out soon enough.

I have a feeling this school has a hierarchy and I have an even stronger feeling that this guy might be King.

Lakeside prep is the prettiest-looking shithole I have ever come across.

The teachers have sticks up their asses thinking they’re some fucking privileged pricks because they work here. And I learned all that before lunch, first day.

Really this place is just an academy for stuck-up shits that have more money than sense and parents that don’t give a fuck about them. I will admit the food is good. Normally I don’t eat lunch, not because I’m worried about my figure but because the cafeteria is just not a place I want to be. But I need to be here today.

I need to study everybody and everything. This school is nothing like my last school. Or the school before that.

Its files are locked tight, its students watched closely.

I couldn’t get much more than a list of names and seating charts before I arrived and fuck it if I didn’t try. They’ve got some well-funded systems here.

I take my tray, surprised by the food choices. My last place served patties likely made from maggots and the tears of failing students, this place serves bagels with almond butter and organic jelly.

It’s laughable how fancy this place is yet how rowdy the students are. There’s no order, nobody keeping them in control. My last place wasn’t as feral as this and that’s saying something.

There are two girls from the cheer squad dancing on a table in the far corner, the jock-looking assholes at the table beside them throwing a football around, laughing when it hits Blair on the head and causes her to drop her tray.

Blair… maybe I should have agreed to ally with her. Not that she’ll gain me any ranking, but I bet she has a lot of opinions on who are the shits and who are the not shits.

There’s a girl sitting on the floor in the corner with paperwork spread out all around her. Clearly a kiss-ass. Maybe she’s worth speaking to.

Meh.

I raise a brow and sit at the end of the closest table, pulling apart my lunch with my fingers and popping it onto my tongue. It tastes as good as it looks.

Fuck.

The people sitting at the other end of this table start whispering about me. Word has already travelled about the arrival of the new kid.

I find Loki two tables over, whose pencil I snapped this morning, and wink at him when he leans around the head of his friend to look at me. He scowls and looks away, making me laugh through my nose.

When lunch is over, I dump my tray and head out to the halls to explore and familiarize myself with the layout. I skip as I go, chewing on a wad of gum, headphones in one ear but not both. I like to be able to hear my surroundings.

“Miss Deville!” a booming voice calls, forcing me to stop.

“Principal Cooper,” I respond, turning to face him as he waddles in his large legs to reach me. “Problem?”

He’s almost wheezing when he reaches me. Dude needs to eat less pie and do more cardio.

“I spoke to Mr. Bromley.” He wipes at the sweat on his brow with a folded handkerchief. It even has his initials on it and the school emblem. I bet they were a gift from one of his kiss-ass students.

I fold my arms over my chest and give him a settled look. “And?”

“He said you were very disruptive in your first lesson, talking about ties becoming nooses and disturbing your classmates.”

I fight the urge to sigh and roll my eyes. “It was the excitement of my first class, Principal Cooper. I get anxious in social situations and say things I ordinarily wouldn’t say.”

“That’s all well and good but…”

“It’s a genuine thing, I can’t help it. Surely I’m not about to be punished for something I can’t help?”

“Disrupting your class can be helped. As in don’t do it again.”

I salute him. “I’ll try harder to be a better student, Principal Cooper.”

This seems to appease him. “And I’ll try to better understand your anxieties. We want you to feel safe here at Lakeside. Not anxious.”

“I appreciate that, Principal Cooper.” I’m gritting my teeth and forcing a smile as my faux saccharine tone wins him over.

“Well, enjoy the rest of your first day, and remember to come knocking if you need anything.”

I nod and continue my way, almost walking into somebody when I turn. I try to sidestep around the bitch but she does the same, staying in my path, putting us almost chest to chest.

“Who are you?” she asks, looking down her nose at me, brown eyes glittering with malice.

Here we go.